


i never asked for to find my twin, but here you are

by IgnotusSomnium, orcamermaid



Series: The Inherent Romanticism of Dragons [3]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Changelings, First Meetings, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IgnotusSomnium/pseuds/IgnotusSomnium, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orcamermaid/pseuds/orcamermaid
Summary: Nastya is on the run from her parents. Jonny is trying to find his. They meet in the middle.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina
Series: The Inherent Romanticism of Dragons [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832185
Comments: 9
Kudos: 182





	i never asked for to find my twin, but here you are

**Author's Note:**

> title from flowers and blood by mariee sioux.

Nastya is tired. She's been walking for days, sleeping in bushes, and she has no idea where she's even going. She can't try to find the Court; they gave her away. They won't want her back. They wanted her to grow up the way she did, alone and mistrusted and feared. So fuck them.

She's never traveled. She has no familiarity with any places other than a village that hates her. So she's just... walking.

Well, right now she's actually sitting at the counter in a tavern, eating some lamb stew. It's not great, but she's barely eaten since she left, so she's not fussed about the taste. She stole some money from her "parents" before she ran; she can afford stew for now. She doesn't know what she's going to do once she can't, but she'll figure something out. She has to. She's trying not to think too much about the future.

She knows she must look a sight—her hair hasn't seen a comb in days, her clothes are dirty, and she hasn't had the opportunity to bathe. She doesn't mind. Better people avoid her because they think she's dirty than get close and start to realise she's different. Which is why, when a boy sits down at the counter next to her, she's not only annoyed but confused. She glances at him. He doesn't look too great himself; he's clearly been on the road, and his clothes don't fit very well. She suspects he stole them. He looks about her age. She watches quietly as he orders bread and water from the tavern-keeper, and then, to her horror, he turns to her.

"You're from near here, right?" he asks her.

Nastya is not a fan of this development. She does not want to talk to some strange boy.

"I… am, yes," she says reluctantly.

"Do you know anyone called Vangelis around here?"

Nastya tenses. She's _sure_ he must notice. Shit. Fuck. Did they send someone after her? No, probably not after her, but after the money, maybe. She reminds herself that there's a knife in her bag, and that she's fast. She's not sure why he didn't just ask if she's Anastasia Vangelis. Maybe he's trying to be subtle.

"Why?" she says after a moment.

"Long lost family, supposedly," he says without looking at her.

"Oh." Oh, he's not. He can't be. Surely he's not. Her luck can't be _that_ bad. She takes him in properly, and... yeah. Goddammit. The fae realm is clinging to him like a faint glimmer, like cobwebs, like the lightest morning frost. She can think of few worse people to have run into.

"You're their child," she says. It's not a question.

She's a bit worried he'll try to kill her once he finds out what and who she is and what she stole from him. She didn't have a choice, of course, but if his reasoning is anything like that of his parents... She considers reaching for her knife, but doesn't move yet.

The stranger—the boy she switched lives with—stares at her.

"They… They knew?" he asks.

Nastya snorts. She can't help it.

"Oh, they knew," she says bitterly. _And they never let me forget it, either_ , she doesn't add.

She can see him still staring, presumably trying to pick out her inhuman features; she shifts her head a bit so her hair covers her ears more fully, some of it falling forward into her face. She's spent a lot of time being scrutinised like this. She doesn't enjoy it. Although the lack of violence and shouting is a nice change of pace.

"You… They didn't take you back?" he says.

It takes her a moment to realise he's talking about the Court. She gives him a bewildered look and doesn't dignify that with an answer. They gave her away. They don't _want_ her. Of course they didn't take her back.

"I ran away," she says instead, quietly. "I can give you directions. If you still want them to be your parents, be my guest. They were certainly never interested in being mine."

"I thought…" He trails off. He seems to be at a loss for words. "What was it like?"

What a fucking question. Nastya doesn't answer for a moment. She doesn't know how to summarise it—the constant interrogations; the beatings, not just from her parents but from anyone who wanted to teach her her place or have a look at her strange silver blood; the knowledge that she'd always be an outsider no matter what she did...

"Lonely," she settles on.

The boy laughs bitterly.

"Yeah," he says. "God, they messed us both up, didn't they?"

Nastya huffs out something approaching a laugh. "You could say that."

She looks at him for a while before she speaks again.

"So it wasn't… You weren't… They weren't good to you?"

She honestly doesn't remember that much about the Court. She was very young when they gave her away. In her imagination, she's always been torn between hating them because of what they did to her, and picturing the Court as some idyllic place where people would understand her and nobody would hurt her anymore.

The boy snorts. "I was a _pet._ Once I stopped being cute and little and obeying everything they said, they decided they didn't want me anymore." He scratches at the wooden counter. "One day there's a new toddler in my room and all my stuff is gone, and they tell me to leave."

"Oh."

Nastya has always figured that they must have been very desperate for a human child, to steal one and leave her in its place. She's imagined that they must dote upon her replacement, the perfect little boy she never was. She's never really considered that it might have been like this. That his life might have been like hers.

"I guess they didn't really want either of us," she says carefully.

She sees him scowl at the table for a moment before he speaks.

"Their loss."

They eat in silence for a while, once the tavern-keeper brings Jonny's bread. It doesn't look like much of a meal. Nastya looks mournfully at her half-full bowl of stew before pushing it in his direction and mumbling something about not being hungry. She's not sure he buys it, but he does eat, and he gives her a piece of his bread in return. It's… comfortable. It's nice. 

Eventually he looks up at her. "Anywhere in particular you were running away to?"

"Just… away," she says with a shrug. "I've never been anywhere else. I don't have anywhere to go."

There's another pause.

"I heard there's a city north of here," he says casually. "If we go together we're less likely to get robbed."

Nastya is momentarily speechless. He doesn't know her. He doesn't even know her _name_. All he knows is that she's been living the life that was supposed to be his. And he wants her to travel with him. She blinks.

"You would… want that?"

"Sure. Why not? Us against the world." He smiles a little.

She decides she likes his smile. It feels like a secret. She can't keep herself from smiling back, just a bit.

"Yeah. I can live with that."

"What should I call you?" he asks. Right, _now_ they're doing introductions.

"Nastya," she says. She holds out her hand; he shakes it.

"Call me Jonny," he says after a moment's hesitation. She assumes he isn't giving her his true-name. That's fine. She hasn't given him hers either. She smiles.

"Alright," she says. "Jonny. I like it."

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to everyone on discord for coming up with and contributing to this au!


End file.
